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Woman’s  Foreign  Missionary  Society 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
36  Bromfield  Street,  Boston,  Mass. 


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Op  en  Doors  for  the 
Detained  Volunteer 

TO  HER  WHO  SAYS 
“THE  DOOR  IS  SHUT  ” 


YOU  think  often  of  that  white  day  when, 
after  months  of  irresolution,  you  signed 
the  Student  Volunteer  Declaration.  The 
days  that  followed  brought  fresh  knowledge  of 
the  world  need,  and  the  decision,  made  perhaps 
reluctantly  and  under  pressure  of  conviction, 
grew  into  a  passion.  To  go  to  the  field  came  to 
seem  the  supreme  raison  d’etre — the  one  thing 
worth  doing.  And  now,  after  all  this,  God  does 
not  permit.  Health  or  family  or  some  other 
hindrance  bars  the  way.  While  others  of  the 
Band  are  preparing  to  sail,  you  are  trying  to  bid 
them  a  cheerful  Godspeed,  but  in  your  heart  you 
are  saying,  “Why  this  waste?  What  channel 
for  this  pent-up  longing  to  help?  ”  With  another 
sorely  tested  you  ask,  “  Why  is  light  given  to  one 
whose  way  is  *  hid  and  whom  God  hath  hedged 
in?”  Life  looks  full  of  “  common  days  and  level 
stretches  white  with  dust.” 

Let  me  say  that  the  one  who  writes  this  little 
word  is  no  cold-blooded  sermonizer,  but  one  who, 
too,  would  go  but  God  bids  stay;  one  who  must 
pray  daily  for  help  to  say, 


“  I  worship  Thee,  sweet  Will  of  God, 

And  all  Thy  ways  adore. 

Ill  that  He  blesses  is  our  good 
And  unblest  good  is  ill, 

And  all  is  right  that  seems  most  wrong, 

If  it  be  His  sweet  Will!” 

It  will  be  more  easy  then  to  believe  me  when  I 
say  I  am  finding  out  that  the  door  is  not  shut, 
but  wide  open. 

Dear  girl,  you  who  are  looking  backward  with 
a  tear,  and  forward  with  a  sigh,  there  is  a  place 
of  privilege  and  power  waiting  for  you  in  the 
home  church.  That  home  community,  no  matter 
how  small  or  commonplace  it  may  look,  thirsts 
for  the  uplift  of  a  great  service.  The  need  and 
want  of  the  world  is  here  as  surely  as  it  is  yonder. 
Some  whose  lives  touch  ours  to-day,  cry,  “  I 
would  see  Jesus,”  as  well  as  the  Greek  or  the 
Hindu. 

The  young  people  of  the  church  need  you  and 
they  have  a  right  to  expect  much  from  you.  At 
first  they  may  be  a  little  in  awe  of  one  who  had 
planned  such  a  transcendental  career  as  that  of  a 
missionary,  but  they  are  ready  to  admire  and 
love  and  imitate.  You  may  lead  them  to  seek 
the  things  that  are  above  in  conversation,  books, 
their  fun,  or  in  a  career.  A  young  woman  I  knew, 
who  returned  to  what  seemed  a  very  dull  com¬ 
munity,  within  two  years  had  inspired  eight  young 
people  to  enter  college. 

Then  the  mission  study  class  that  has  lan¬ 
guished  for  lack  of  a  leader,  you  can  make  live 
and  grip  hearts,  as  a  mission  study  class  can 

3 


That  company  of  Standard  Bearers  is  waiting  for 
the  new  life  of  your  consecration.  You  may  lead 
it  on  to  victory.  Last  year  reports  came  that 
some  companies  had  died.  Only  one  reason  was 
assigned — lack  of  leadership. 

There  is  a  small  door  often  overlooked  because 
not  so  imposing  as  some — work  with  boys  and 
girls.  Your  voice  will  lose  its  note  of  regret  as 
you  see  their  faces  kindle  over  Gordon  and  Mac- 
kay,  and  their  figures  straighten  to  heroic  bear¬ 
ing.  You  will  find  use  for  all  you  know,  and  be 
on  the  qui  vive  for  more. 

The  Sunday  school  class  you  will  be  asked  to 
take  will  lose  its  bored  look,  as  it  studies  writh 
you  the  Modern  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  the  current 
events  of  the  Kingdom.  One  day  we  stood  by 
the  little  graveyard  where  lie  the  charred  remains 
of  the  Paotingfu  martyrs — Horace  Tracy  Pitkin 
and  others  who,  like  him,  went  to  God  in  a  chariot 
of  fire.  That  night  some  one  read  the  eleventh 
chapter  of  Hebrews,  and  it  was  as  if  we  heard  it 
for  the  first  time.  Each  word  burned  its  way 
into  our  hearts. 

You  surely  will  not  make  the  mistake  of  one 
college  girl  whose  pastor  gave  her  a  class  of  red- 
haired,  freckle-faced  little  Mamies  and  Annies 
from  a  part  of  town  known  as  the  Patch,  and  she 
looked  down  on  that  class.  She  thought  she  knew 
too  much.  Heaven  pity  her!  She  knew  far  too 
little,  and  she  had  forgotten  the  stern  words  of 
the  Master  concerning  him  who  despised  one  of 
the  little  ones. 

The  women  of  the  church  need  you — you  who 
now  take  your  place  as  a  woman  among  them. 

4 


You  know  something,  doubtless,  of  the  Woman’s 
Foreign  Missionary  Society  and  its  marvelous 
history — how  the  little  band  of  eight  who,  forty 
years  ago,  organized  in  weakness  and  in  fear  and 
in  much  trembling,  now  hear  the  rallying  cry  of 
three  hundred  thousand  members  and  eight  hun¬ 
dred  thousand  dollars.  With  your  trained  mind, 
your  up-to-date  methods,  your  missionary  ardor, 
you  can  make  the  monthly  meeting  a  tonic  to 
women  burdened  with  many  domestic  cares.  It 
may  mean  a  breath  from  the  sea,  a  vision  of  moun¬ 
tains  and  space  as  they  walk  abroad  with  God 
in  the  wide  earth.  And  you  will  discover  un¬ 
suspected  riches  in  the  most  unpromising  members. 
She  may  be  some  old  black  Mary,  half  blind,  crip¬ 
pled  with  rheumatism,  no  provision  for  a  lonely 
old  age.  She  had  done  a  bit  of  work  for  one  about 
to  sail  for  the  field.  When  money  was  handed 
her  she  cried,  “  Oh,  please  don’t  pay  me!  I  want 
to  feel  as  I  sit  at  home  that  I  have  fifty  cents  in¬ 
vested  in  you  in  China.”  Old  black  Mary  inspired 
the  whole  auxiliary  and  she  often  gave  wings  to 
that  missionary’s  lagging  feet  and  spirit  as  she 
thought,  “  I  must  be  worth  it.  I  must  be  worth 
it,  precious  money  such  as  that.” 

Who  can  foretell  the  future?  Your  baffled 
purpose  may  live  again,  multiplied  many  fold  in 
some  other  life  or  lives  that  you  have  inspired  to 
volunteer.  It  may  be  one  of  the  boys  or  girls  of 
the  King’s  Heralds.  A  little  eight-year-old  saw 
an  ugly  idol  exhibited  in  a  Sunday  school  talk. 
She  went  home  and  said  to  her  mother,  “  When 
I  get  to  be  a  big  lady,  I  must  go  and  tell  those 
people  that  idol  is  not  God.”  And  that  child 

5 


resolve  flowered  into  a  half-century  of  great  mis¬ 
sionary  service  in  Burma,  for  the  child  became 
Mrs.  Ingalls.  It  may  be  the  selflessness  of  your 
spirit  that  will  help  some  mother,  so  that  instead 
of  a  stone  of  stumbling  she  may  be  a  bulwark  of 
strength  to  the  son  or  daughter  ready  to  volunteer. 

May  it  not  be  that  you  and  I  need  this  work  at 
home  to  test  the  purity  and  strength  of  our  pur¬ 
pose?  Do  we  say,  “  Oh,  if  it  must  be  at  home, 
why  can’t  it  be  among  the  Mormons  or  in  the 
Black  Belt — something  really  heroic  and  worthy?” 
An  incoming  sophomore  was  spending  her  vaca¬ 
tion  in  the  country,  where  were  several  families 
of  French  Swiss  farmers.  Their  children  she  in¬ 
vited  to  her  temporary  home,  week  by  week, 
taught  them  Bible  and  missionary  stories,  singing, 
and  incidentally  the  English  language,  for  some 
of  them  could  not  as  yet  use  the  tongue  of  their 
adopted  country.  Is  it  not  a  good  omen  that 
this  Student  Volunteer,  quick  to  sacrifice  a  golden 
holiday  for  her  little  foreign  neighbors,  'will  not 
be  found  wanting  in  that  distant  field  to  which 
she  is  under  appointment? 

Is  our  enthusiasm  for  humanity  of  such  ardor 
that  it  will  burn  brightly  at  home?  If  it  smol¬ 
ders  here,  we  may  well  fear  it  would  go  out  entirely 
in  the  mist  and  murk  of  heathendom.  If  our 
heart  fails  to  quicken  over  him  whom  we  see,  how 
can  we  hope  it  will  kindle  toward  those  wTe  have 
never  seen?  Can  we  endure  the  test  and  ring 
true?  Then  for  us  there  is  a  special  word,  “For 
as  his  share  is  that  goeth  down  to  the  battle,  so 
shall  his  share  be  that  tarrieth  by  the  baggage, 
they  shall  share  alike.”  And  the  word  is  to  us  as 

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truly  as  to  David,  “  Thou  didst  well  that  it  was 
in  thy  heart.” 

Not  only  does  the  home  church  need  us  and 
we  the  work,  but  the  work  at  home  is  vital  to 
success  yonder.  More  than  a  year  ago  we  were 
at  Port  Arthur.  With  many  a  responsive  thrill 
we  climbed  203  Metre  Hill  and  as  an  especial 
privilege  were  allowed  to  row  about  in  the  harbor 
and  watch  the  divers  at  work  bringing  up  parts  of 
sunken  Russian  war-ships.  It  was  a  sight  to- 
remember — the  diver  buckling  on  his  harness  and 
going  down,  down,  for  buried  treasures.  He 
seemed  so  unafraid,  and  yet  the  very  breath  of 
his  life  depended  on  the  man  at  the  pump.  Sup¬ 
pose  that  comrade  grew  tired  or  dissatisfied,  be¬ 
cause  pumping  is  tame  and  monotonous.  “It  is 
unthinkable,”  you  say,  “  when  it  means  a  life.” 

Yet  do  we  not  know  beyond  the  shadow  of 
doubting  that  we  are  as  necessary  to  those  who- 
go,  that  on  our  faithfulness  in  prayer  that  pre¬ 
vails,  in  love  that  never  fails,  in  giving  that  costs,, 
hangs  their  success — yes,  their  life?  Do  we  give 
ourselves  to  the  work  of  developing  in  the  home 
church  a  strong  base  for  world-wide  conquest 
with  the  same  consecration  as  those  on  the  field? 
Then  are  we  one  with  them  in  service,  and  some 
day  one  in  reward. 

This  is  not  all  hypothesis.  It  is  being  done. 
As  one  Student  Volunteer  was  about  to  graduate, 
her  only  sister  died;  and  this  sister  had  said,  “You 
go  with  no  anxiety  for  father  and  mother,  now 
no  longer  young.  They  will  always  have  a  home 
with  me.”  She  went  back  to  a  town  of  less  than 
one  hundred.  There  were  no  young  people,  for 

7 


they  were  away,  either  getting  or  using  an  educa¬ 
tion.  She  organized  a  mission  band  among  boys 
and  girls,  became  a  virtual  pastor’s  assistant, 
though  unsalaried — she  was  a  real  Volunteer — 
went  once  a  week  to  a  neighboring  city  to  lead  a 
mission  study  class  in  the  Young  Woman’s  Chris¬ 
tian  Association,  acted  as  friendly  visitor  to  coma¬ 
tose  auxiliaries,  all  the  time  studying,  praying, 
yearning  after  her  chosen  field  with  purpose  that 
knew  no  limitation. 

Detained  Volunteers  are  secretaries  of  foreign 
mission  boards,  leaders  in  the  Student  Volunteer 
Movement,  in  social  settlements,  in  every  activity 
for  the  uplift  of  America  and,  through  America, 
the  world.  When  they  knew  God  did  not  permit, 
they  lost  no  time  in  complaints,  but  speedily 
found  the  other  work  God  had  for  them  to  do. 
After  all,  it  is  one  army  the  wide  world  round, 
and  “  there’s  good  fighting  all  along  the  line.” 

The  door  shut?  It  is  flung  open  to  a  large  life 
and  a  great  service,  if  only  we  are  in  Him  who 
said,  “  I  am  the  Door.” 


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